Now that Activision has merged up with Blizzard all under Vivendi it’s time to consider what to do with all the additional overhead, management, internal studios and sheer amount of people working on projects within their organization. In other words, it’s time to trim the fat and get leaned out for the long haul.
This isn’t unexpected news, the only way to grow more effective as a large company is to remove some of the access baggage that can slow you down and let your competitors take control. This is a sad job which nobody takes pride in (most normal people anyway) but it could mean the difference between rising to the top and sinking like a brick.
“We are focused on improving efficiency across the combined organization and are concentrating on businesses where we have leadership positions that are aligned with Activision Publishing’s long-term corporate objectives,” Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith said in a statement. (gamespot)
It’s important to be aggressive as a large company, just like you would be as a startup company. There is a reason startup companies grow into powerful competitors that win, grow and eventually become (or be purcahsed by) larger companies.
As part of this move some staff will be migrated to new projects, persumably reporposed into other divisions or allowed to find new jobs somewhere else. This is called “realignment” by those in the management organization, and currently those up for realignment are:
- Radical Entertainment (Prototype, Crash of the Titans)
- High Moon Studios (The Bourne Conspiracy, Darkwatch).
- Massive Entertainment (World in Conflict, Ground Control)
- Swordfish Studios (50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Cold Winter)
These realignments along with other organizational changes will effect a few working game titles:
- Brutal Legend
- Ghostbusters
- Wet
- Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
- World at Conflict: Soviet Assault
- 50 Cent Blood on the Sand
- Zombie Wranglers
- Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
- Several Xbox Live Arcade titles
At this point we’re not sure which, if any, will continue to be developed under Activision and which will be sold off to other companies or retired. Surely, those money making titles will be sold off if Activision has no plans to finish them.
Again, it’s hard to consider this a bad decision. This is a decision of growth over having too many “Cooks in the kitchen” making soup. It’s better to have rock solid titles of epic proportions than a large pool of mediocre titles with minimal sales and bad reputations, and that’s why they spend a lot of time in the office working on this and having a type of office chair for long hours on a computer is really helpful in this area.
It’s not that the titles they’re questioning are necessarily bad, but are not the leading titles in their space and are should be either given a stronger team to work on them or retire them entirely. To build a stronger team with passion and direction it might be best to sell the franchise(s) to other organizations so they can do it right with time and attention to detail.
(Thanks, gamespot)
Wii Supply
Hi guys.
Thanks for the episode. I did not find the time to listen to your show on a regular basis the last months, i am very sorry for that 🙁
I moved to a new city, started a new job and all of that took a lot of time and energy.
I hope i can listen to it more often in the future .. one of you guys is reminding me all the time, everytime there is a new episode .. so i will not miss any 😉
Regarding this episode:
I did not play much, nearly nothing to be honest. I think the only thing i played was 1 or 2 hours of Diablo 4 with a friend because of the new season. I did not find any time for playing Magic the Gathering, which is an indicator for my non-existing free time 🙂
– I was never into CoD and never played any of these, so i don´t really care about releases on whatever platform 🙂
– GTA6 release: i really think its funny and in addition fascinating, that a game has such an impact, that other developers plan aroud the release of such a big title, so that they dont fall apart. I never played any GTA but some of my friends do. I bought GTA 5 some months ago and tried to play it … but as mentioned above: my free time is very limited for activities at the moment 🙁
– Helldivers 2: I heard a lot about it, how much fun it is if you play it with friends and how many hours my friends spend playing it. I think i have to look out for it when i will find some time 🙂
That´s all i can say, because all other topics i never heard of or can´t say anything to it.
Please keep up the good work and stay healthy!
Greetings from germany,
Ralf